Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) | Hansard source

Thanks for the question. Perhaps I can say this: we have been really clear, and many of people participating in this debate, including the opposition leader, to be fair, have been very clear that this is not the only thing we would advocate to support families in relation to some of these challenging questions nor do we expect this intervention to be a silver bullet. However, what we do hear from parents is that this is very significant and they are looking for assistance because they are not receiving the support they expect should be available to them from the platforms themselves.

So one of the key features in the design of this bill is it really puts the onus on the platforms, not on the parents and not on the kids. We want platforms to simply take reasonable steps to ensure users under the minimum age cannot create or hold an account. I think, based on the tenure of your questioning and your contribution just now, you would accept the harms associated with excessive time online at the very least and it may be that you accept the harms associated with exposure to some of the more challenging features of social media. For example, the Australian psychological association, if you look at the evidence, found significant links between excessive social media use and poor sleep quality and poor mental health outcomes. In particular, they pointed to the use of algorithms and the influence of those algorithms and, frankly, the near-addictive nature of some of those algorithms, because they increase the likelihood of exposing young people to content that is inappropriate and negatively influential such as glorifying eating disorders, glorifying self-harm, or exposing young people to extremist content. I think it would be a matter of agreement across this chamber that those things are not acceptable and are not good for our kids and it is why this bill is being brought to this place.

I said to you earlier in my contribution that the onus is on the platforms, not on parents. For clarity, there are not any penalties for Australians who gain access to an age-restricted social platform and there aren't any penalties for parents or educators who provide that access. It is impossible, and we accept this, for governments to completely stop young people from accessing harmful products or content but we can help by asking the social media companies to play their role. One of the things we hear and was discussed, as I understand it, at the hearing that took place into this bill, is the significance of setting norms. The bill will set clear parameters and norms for our society and assist in ensuring the right outcomes.